BY CONNIE HARSHMAN
HERALD DEMOCRAT
The Sherman School Board heard school district administration recommendations Monday to cut 44 items from the 2008-09 and 2009-10 budgets. Some of the cuts include central office staff, teachers, coordinators, travel budgets, and health insurance changes.
In early 2008, the Board recognized there would be a budget shortfall in the coming year. "There would be a deficit in the Sherman school district, not because of fiscal mismanagement or lack of leadership by the administration or this school board, but an unconstitutional formula for school funding," said John Hendricks, Board president. "The major impact of the new legislation was that SISD's revenue was frozen at our 2005-06 level of funding."
Hendricks said the Board decided to ask the community to approve a 13-cent tax-rate increase rather than pursue budget cuts. On Oct. 4, the tax ratification election failed by an overwhelming margin, putting the district in a tough situation. Due to that failure, the Board had no choice but to pursue budget cutting.
"We strongly believe we did what was in the best interest of our school district by pursuing the tax ratification election first before considering cuts to academic programs and personnel," he added. "Tonight we begin a process that this school board never wanted."
Before allowing Superintendent Al Hambrick to announce the recommendations, the Board invited the public to speak. No one took to the podium.
More details regarding the cuts will be presented by Hambrick on the Dec. 15 School Board meeting. Hambrick said the recommended cuts were the result of more than two months of work and it "was not easy."
For the current fiscal year, it was the administrative recommendation to limit travel for administrators and directors "mainly at the central office location," Hambrick said. Other staff travels and field trips at the campus levels as well as co-curricular and extracurricular activities.
Other areas include eliminating overtime for non-emergency personnel; use of extra staffing through the automated substitute system -- which would allow SISD to utilize existing staff to work in other capacities outside of substituting; and eliminate positions that are currently vacant such as special education speech language pathologist, technology coordinator, secretary, community liaison, and three food service positions. "We are hoping to cut down the extra staffing and use existing staff or trained volunteers," Hambrick added.
The estimated savings from the 2008-09 budget cuts total $322,000.
"If the SISD projected $1.8 million deficit holds true and the projections for the planned 2008-09 cuts hold true, the SISD deficit would be $1.5 million instead of $1.8," Hambrick said.
Depending on the Board's approval, SISD employees will be on the state of Texas' insurance plan. Previously, SISD has paid 100 percent of the employees' health insurance. Hendricks said SISD "has been the only district in Grayson County to completely fund employee health insurance."
There are three options with the state's insurance plan, Hambrick added; SISD is recommending funding of $250 for each employee's health insurance cost. Hambrick said switching to the state's health plan would save SISD $948,000.
Other cuts include additional central office positions such as four coordinator positions, one secretary, one director and two athletic positions.
It was also the administrators' recommendation to change the SISD pre-k program from a full day to a half-day. Hambrick said the state funds a half-day program. In order to retain the staff, he added, the teachers will work with two different groups of students for a total of 32 instead of 20 students. The cutting of the pre-k program is expected to save $242,492.
The administration is also recommending to reduce staff in the Reading Recovery program, Read Right; SISD campus level security; regional day school for the deaf; and increasing elementary school class size. Hambrick said "six " will be cut from the elementary schools, which will allow SISD to stay within the required state classroom size of 22 students per teacher.
As for eliminating positions, Hambrick said, the recommendations do not include individuals at this time. "We are talking about positions, not individual people yet," he said. "Once the Board has approved the reduction of positions, then I will work with Board members, per board policy, and our directors, supervisors and human resources to identify those individuals in those positions."
Some areas looked at but not recommended "at this time," include staggered campus starting times, block scheduling and ESL teacher positions.
Hambrick estimated the total budget cuts at $2,959,902.
Quick to reassure employee fears of getting cut this year, Hambrick said, "no one is losing their job this year." Hambrick estimates employees whose positions will be eliminated will be notified "around March." Hambrick mentioned that natural attrition could take care of the staff cuts necessary to balance the budget. "There is a very strong possibility that most of the positions that we have can be handled through attrition and every effort will be made to work with our staff in this effort," Hambrick said.
During his presentation, Hambrick said, "out of the instructional staff -- which is the largest portion of the budget -- a small percentage was cut."
The recommendations will once again be presented to the Board on Dec. 15 to be approved or rejected.